The wizard is one of the four starting classes in Desktop Dungeons. Wizards are natural magic-users, being able to more easily find, prepare, and use magic glyphs, although they do less damage than other classes.

Contents

Skills

Magic Sense - Can see location of all glyphs

Magic Affinity - Skills cost -1 mana, attack -25%

Magic Attunement - +1 glyph on map, +1 glyph slot

General Strategy

The Wizard's Magical Affinity disadvantage can be entirely offset by the BYSSEPS glyph, or being a Human, making the wizard highly effective at physical combat when maintaining his available enchantments. The Wizard also benefits highly from the already cheap costs of most physical combat glyphs, getting a 50% reduction of mana cost in BYSSEPS, and a 33% reduction in cost of GETINDARE and HALPMEH.

Since BURNDAYRAZ is always generated, finding it is one of the chief priorities for a wizard. Once you do, you'll be in a much better position to fight enemies of all sorts, especially the otherwise-dreaded physical resistant enemies.

Race and Deity Choices

Since wizards are almost completely defined by their magic, it stands to reason that magically-adept races make the best wizards. More importantly, the extra glyph on the map can amount to an extra glyph conversion, assuming you don't play to use it. Elves make for good wizards that can use their favorite spells almost endlessly, while gnomes can turn unwanted spells into valuable mana potions. If you want to have a decent physical attack to fall back on, humans can also work.

Wizards are one of the best-suited classes for Mystera Annur. This does not mean that Mystera Annur is always the best choice for a wizard, however, since it turns your normally subpar (but still usable) physical attack into a completely useless one. Be sure to convert all the glyphs you don't need before joining her. The magic-hating gods, Taurog and Binlor Ironshield, are naturally poor choices for wizards. The other gods can be useful in the right situations.

Challenge Modes

Factory

Using BURNDAYRAZ vs Animated Armour helps Wizard beat Factory with Experience Catapult strategy. Since the armours only have one health and don't replenish their death protection, a wizard can even defeat a level 9 one as early as level 1 if they're lucky.